


I've Had a Bat Dream

by Lexie_Squirrel



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Insanity, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26220406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie_Squirrel/pseuds/Lexie_Squirrel
Summary: The walls of the Arkham Asylum is soaked in madness - it confuses the mind, mixing insane fantasies and reality, and at some moment it become unclear whether Batman ever existed in reality or he was just someone else's dream.
Relationships: Batman/Joker
Kudos: 14





	I've Had a Bat Dream

**Author's Note:**

> It's another translation of my old fics. This one was written back in 2015. It was supposed to be multi-chapter fic, but I managed to finish only one chapter (it still can be read as stand-alone fic). So right now status of this fic is "frozen". But I planning to finish it someday.

This is all a sick nightmare.

These shaking, blurry walls around me seem like dark spots of rot and moisture. A stiff orange robe burns like a fire on me, leaving the mark of the damned on my skin. The handcuffs shackle not only my hands, but my broken, mutilated mind as well. Two men lead me by the arms, they smell like medicine - like from patients, and sterilization - like from medicine cabinets. I can't raise my head, it is like a steel crown of thorns that bite into my temples. But I know without the fact that my guards have no faces, only white spots without eyes and mouths.

I feel that I am drowning in this nightmare, I am trying to escape to the surface, I hit with my hands and feet in the black water, but I still go to the depth, choking on cold and madness. Glare of light far above, on the surface of the water, fades, and I am left alone in impenetrable darkness. I have not been able to scream for a long time, my throat has fused with holey pink flesh, and my eyelashes stick together, covering my already blind, bleeding eyes...

My new shoes are steping somewhere far away, on the chipped floor. Sometimes its step is interrupted and its disappear somewhere behind me. Then my faceless guards grab me by the elbows, shake me, and the sound of my steps resounds in my deafening ears.

Blackness is seething inside me, it's about to rise up the gullet and pour out in uncontrollable vomit. I'm dying, I'm going crazy... What's going on? Why can't I wake up?

My knees is bending again, like I was a disobedient wooden puppet with loose strings.

And then I suddenly see it clearly - a metal door with a barred window. Behind this door is everything and nothing. Infinity and emptiness. Freedom and captivity. Life and death.

I find myself inside, the scalding cold rings from my wrists are vanished. The door disappeared or was it just closed? There was no infinity or freedom in the cell. But there was no death either.

For some reason I am sitting on the floor, leaning on my hands. My hands are trembling, they seem to me to be weak like they're belongs to the old man. The blackness inside me became quiet and imperceptible, turning into starved lightness. I take a few tries to get at my feet, and then I go to the narrow prison bed. The blanket on it is green and prickly. I absorb this sensation - colors in my eyes and tingling in my fingers. And then, unconscious, I fall face down on the bed and freeze there until morning.

I find myself at the door, leaning on it with the back of my head. A small narrow window under the ceiling gives almost no light, but it is still there, barely gleaming and weak. The night has passed, soon the morning will come, and with it - an unknown frightening day. Something begins to grow in my head, some kind of pulsating tumor that eats up all the cells of sanity in my brain, replacing them with a lifeless void.

I stare at the dark floor of my cell until it hurts, until it turns into dazzling white and a huge, strange shadow opens up in it. Black wings spread out in flight... It looks like a bird of prey, but it's not a bird. This is a bat. Now it will separate from the floor and rush at me, climb into my ripped chest and spread its clawed wings, tearing me apart from the inside...

"Are you Bruce Wayne?"

At first I don't understand where this voice is coming from. And then I guess that it came from the next cell, which is opposite of mine. The voice is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I want to hope that I know the speaker well, but the remnants of my mind tell me that this is impossible.

"Y-yes, - I finally answer, parting my lips. - I'm Bruce Wayne".

This name has always been covered, like a heavy brocade, with long-term indisputable respect. Now the brocade was pulled off by someone's cruel hand, revealing its true essence - the Wayne family fell into decay, and their direct heir was a rotten apple on a dying, once lush tree.

"The billionaire? What are you doing here then? Do you whack someone? But then why you here and not in jail?"

Too many questions, it make me dizzy, and a viscous nauseous blackness begins to grow inside again. The stranger's voice sounds surprisingly cheerful and fresh, as if its owner was not in a cell of a psychiatric hospital, but at breakfast after a nice jog.

"Hey, can you look out? I want to see your face".

"I can't, sorry..."

I don't think I can get to my feet at all. It seems to me that if I turn my trousers up higher, I can only see the whitewashed bare bones. I feel light, translucent and non-existent.

"Oh, that's okay then. Forget about it".

Pause. Static noise is buzzing in my ears like a disturbed wasps.

"You're crazy too, huh? Since they bring you here".

"I don’t... God, I don’t know!" - I hit my head with my fists.

The tumor inside it twitches and becomes even larger. A little more, and it will completely swallow my brain, until it crawls out of the eye sockets and ear canals outward with black poisonous pus.

"Everything is like a nightmare, but I just can't wake up!" - my voice breaks, and boiling tears appear in my eyes.

"This is exactly how you go crazy, don't you think?" - the voice sounds surprisingly cheerful.

"I don't know... I've never tried it".

"I tried it. And I even liked it. Going crazy is fun. I recommend it to everyone!"

I swallow the lightness and wearily ask:

"How long... how long have you been here?"

"As long as I can remember".

"What do you mean by that?"

"I don't know. I'm crazy. I simply don't remember anything. Nothing at all. Only darkness and cold. And my madness... Weird, huh?"

"It's not working like that, - I say, closing my eyes. - You must remember something".

"Nope. Nothing at all. No-thing. I don't even remember yesterday's dinner. But on the other hand, I remember my dreams very well. I always have the same dream".

Long, incredibly deaf silence. The walls sway menacingly, threatening to cover me with my head like a stifling blanket. The blaze of the orange robe begins to fade, and it merges in color with my skin and becomes indistinguishable, as if I had become naked. My body aches with pain, as if someone had been beating me for a long time with a metal bat, crumbling bones and knocking out fragments of my teeth.

"Why are you don't talk anymore?" - asks my neighbor after a while.

"I'm waiting for you to tell your dream..."

"I wasn’t going to tell it! - now there is an insult in his voice. - That's all I have, and I'm not going to share it!"

"As you wish..."

"But you'd better share everything with me. How do you got here? Did you do something bad? Do you slice and dice someone? Do you eat someone's heart for breakfast? Or do you killed your butler and then sewed gloves out of his skin?"

The butler... Alfred... Calmly closed mouth and sarcastic twinkle in intelligent eyes. My servant, assistant... almost a father. I still can't believe that after so many years he betrayed me. In such a cruel way. It still burn in my chest after he gave me and my secret into the wrong hands without the slightest regret.

"You know my name... How?"

"I heard that Bruce Wayne was supposed to move here. Many people talk about it. Oh, you'll be famous here, I'm sure. Especially if you've done something really cool. Maybe they will even be afraid of you. So what did you do?"

"I killed a man".

My knuckles still remember the sharp relief of his cheekbones and how easily - between his inhalation and my exhalation - the thin knife intended for me enters someone else's flesh.

"Pfff, I killed too. Many times. But this is not a reason to put you in a mental hospital. We've got VIP seats here, you know. Special care and electroshock on Thursdays. Blackgate would be enough for you".

"It was an accident..."

And again I see that broken figure on the concret with spilling red stain around it. The wind ruffles my hair, but I understand that I will not have time to hide ...

"Even more so! I don’t believe that a rich man like you didn’t have enough money for a decent lawyer".

"They found out that I call myself Batman. And everything around me began to crumble and go crazy as it was orchestrated by someone. My whole life... all of it collapsed in an instant. And the worst part is... I'm starting to think they are right. That there is no Batman and never was. That there is only me, Bruce Wayne, who went mad and killed a man. God, I'm really insane...

Blackness rises in me like a thick stream, and I barely have time to get to the toilet before I throw up. My hands stick to the dull metal, and when I try to rip my fingers off, the thin strips of my skin come off. The walls converge around me, and I realize that my ribcage is squeezed so tightly that I cannot breathe. The lips are tightly sealed with a thickened black liquid, and blood begins to drip from the eyes burning with pain.

And then I scream.

Scream at the top of my rotting lungs.

Because it can't be.

I am Batman!

I am Batman.

The caped crusader of Gotham, who holds the whole city in his palms like a snow globe, protecting it from evil and misfortune. It sounds like ravings of a madman, because there are no superheroes. There is only a lonely boy, before whose eyes his parents were killed, who grew up and realized that he had no place in this world, that he would have to hide in his childhood fantasies. Because these are exactly children's fantasies - these fights with criminals, double life and other funny adventures of Zorro.

These are all make-believes of a lonely sick child. That is why Alfred had such an unbearable sadness in his eyes when he said to me: "Master Bruce, it's time to admit that you need help." A black cape with a cowl in my exhausted hands. White faces of people in the courtroom. My own rising rage. Because I couldn't make it all up. I know for sure that under my house there is a cave, where there is a super-computer and the Batmobile, a mechanical tyrannosaurus and a huge playing card... What is was? Jack? King?

No, joker.

"How do you know about my dreams?" - ask unexpectedly muffled voice from the opposite cell.

Struggling I rise up to my disobedient legs and walk to the door. And I stare out of my barred window through the empty cold corridor.

Thin white fingers dug into the bars. Behind it is the bright green eyes.

"How do you know about my dreams? - he repeats. - How do you know about Batman?"


End file.
